23 Kawi Blows Smoke

This spring we put a brand new 2003 23hp kawi on one of our Great Danes, and every morning it blows smoke...Mind you its been over 90 degrees everyday for the last two weeks here, its been doing this for about a month now. Any thoughts, or does anyone else have this problem?

I have a 17hp Kawasaki on new mower this year. At about 10 hours or so, it started smoking heavily on a startup, but I thought Id let it run for a while and see if it quit. This wasnt just a cold-start smoke, this was a very HEAVY white cloud. Then I noticed there was oil being spit from the exhaust manifold and onto the deck, so I shut it down.

People on this website and the mechanic from my dealer told me the slots in the rings rotate around the piston and sometimes line up. When they line up on the low side, and you shut the engine down, the oil will drain into the combustion chamber, causing blow-by on the occasional start up. The oil level was dead on full, not over filled by any amount.

50 hours later, it still smokes on the startup every so often. Sometimes its once a week, sometimes its once a month, sometimes its two or three starts in a row. But there is no appreciable loss in oil.

If my engine was losing a lot of oil and heavily smoking every start, Id be complaining and looking for a replacement.

we have run into this problem too and have decided that it is running too rich. It's pulling too much fuel in and the spark plugs are building up carbon. Every time we change the oil, it is black as night 3 days later. It also has problems with idle when the temperature is exceeding 85 or so degrees.

Clean your air filter really well or just put a new one in. I had this same problem on my Kawasaki and it fixed it. Mine would also sputter a little and blow out smoke going up a hill. Something to try. Good luck